i am quite amaze that we are good in telling friends how good we are in coding and we even go all the way to show off our code, when we have a major problem staring at us (the Coders of Africa) i  would like to know if there are people who could sacrifice the time and effort just to build an online payment solution for African Countries from ground Up so that we can have our own online payment system.This i feel makes a hell lot of sense. I hear by call on all time programmers of Africa to consider this open proposal to develop an online payment system for Us By Us. i would like to here your feedback on this or does or coding ends in just making some good cash only .think about it, it is time to prove to the western comrades that we can build our own solutions when we want to

Within the Nigerian domain, I believe there exists a company called Interswitch which, though expensive, is pretty established. Many companies are using them as well. There are also others I am sure. Rather than reinvent the wheel, why not see if you can extend upon what they have already done?

What concerns me is that, given the way Nigeria tends to operate, I wouldn't be surprised that the likes of interswitch have a lock on the banks and as such, those banks may not be willing to entertain your proposal.

Since you are developing something for the entire continent, perhaps the best thing to do would be to start with a small country where the bureaucracy/people are more likely to go with change than with a big country like Nigeria where "the mafia" may have already set up shop. Who knows? Based on your popularity with your pilot project, other countries would then sign on and before you know it, your product would be the talk of the town.

I think for a project like this, you need to make your intentions known to a wider audience as NL probably caters to a mostly Nigerian audience. You never know, there might be other fellow African developers thinking the same thing and who might already be at a stage more advanced than you are now

As always my 2 cents.

I believe there is a lot to developing an online payment system than just putting together an application to get it running. It is quite possible, I mean we have examples like Kiva www.kiva.com and paypal that work in Africa But the problem is getting banks in on the deal. Considering that many banks consider africa high risk, that happens to be, in my opinion the greatest hurdle to the idea for now. In time, I believe this fear will dissipate but africans have a part in deciding when this will happen.

The problem with your proposal is the "African" issue. If you are creating one for Nigeria it seems a more feasible concept because it will be solving problems that are uniquely related to Nigeria. The reason why I say this is that not all African countries have problems with international online payment systems . Most of the Southern and Northern Africa countries do not have this problem. They do not need an "African" payment system.

It may have to be SMS based as most people have access to a mobile phone.

I quiet agree with you all, but like some one said, interswitch has a lock on the banks already and might be difficult to challenge them even a good company like e-trazact is still on the edge how much less charms which is just coming up. I believe the solution is just to do something entirely different, probably go the mobile way.

I don't believe that InterSwitch Necessarily has a hold on banks. I believe they have their own deal with the banks but if a company comes up with something different and more beneficial to both customers and the banks, many will try it out if they are open to new things as banks here are. Unfortunately, the problem I foresee is the banks actually willing to provide the right infrastructure to enable this move. Any Payment system that works to bring in more revenue should be definitely welcomed.

1) Security is definitely a huge issue and that would not work without banks cooperating
2) Real time access to information will also depend greatly on banks providing such but if a firm is willing to build for the banks the tools needed at reduced or no cost, then that will definitely be something new

Nice idea without the "AFRICAN" concept in it. I agree with you we need to start developing our own things but a project like this does not rely on your coding prowress to succeed. It requires lots of protocols and beuracracies. It requires trust, since its a group of people coming together and not a company, then security becomes an issue. Government policies is also a major factor. While the government would be happy at the project, would the banks or merchants involved be? Interswitch is a consortium of Banks-----meaning the database connection strings to each bank's database is trusted with a company - interswitch. It costs them less and of course they feel secured.

However, if you say we should develop a universal banking system for our banks would be a veru nice idea. That i know they pay through their nose and i'm sure they would be glad to have a cheaper and very reliable application. I have always been thinking in this direction sha.

All the same, nice idea and nice to know your mental thought process is awakened for development. Keep thinking like this!!!

Building such a solution however, to compete with interswitch is a great idea as competition works in the end to greatly reduce cost and improve customer service. @Poster, if you are willing, count me in.

me too!!!

I am glad that some of you see my view also on the monopoly that interswitch has but before we start a project like these we need to do research regarding how the entire process works and also we need to take advantage of the strengths of the programming language that are good for online processing e.g java and php preferebly , i am suggesting anyway if any body understand the process of building such i could develop a workspace for ourselves to work on and then discuss of ideas much better there.if you are interested as i am you could mail me at chris4ama@excite.com and we start off

I've been working on a payment gateway for about 5months now. BUt existing systems like Interswitch dont want it around. If you can send me a pm I will send you the url of the website. I can post it to the public now as it is in its beta status. majormediainc @ gmail.com to get full brief.

Hey,
It's a nice idea. Inter Switch is not a threat at all. if a "better and reliable deal" is on the table for most banks, switching over to the better deal would be the most logical business move to make.On the other hand, creating this "better and reliable " deal which we propose is no small feat. it involves more than a collaboration of the best software brains. this days, software development is 49% Professionalism(on the side of the Developers) and 51% MARKETING.We should also consider the latter well.By the way, Inter switch has some obvious Bugs within their nerves.I'm on with this.

There is of course OPUS by Eresoft Ltd., it's platform is in niche market. Admission form sales and school fee collections.

count me in

beliv it or not any company that can link paypal and our banks to work with the company in providing a payment processing platform will surpass what e/tranzact and interswitch has done.

What an interesting views on this topic. I think the major setback is that most Nigerian programmers want to start big. They dont want to follow the ladder but they prefer to fly.

Most programmers do not understand that building an online business takes time that could run into years. They always expect to start generating revenue immediately their site or Apps are up Only to be disappointed after a few months and give up on the project.

Most Nigerian programmers have to understand the basics of project management. Im not sure if the subject Project Management is being taught in Nigerian Universities but over here, Project management courses are a compulsory course every university student must take. This enable the student be able to understand every step of managing a project rather than expecting return on project as soon as the project starts running.


I have reviewed alot of Nigerian Websites and i have followed them closely. They seem to close down after a few months. The reason is because most of the owners didnt make money immediately as they expected. There are different ways online web owners can generate revenue from their website while waiting for the big return on the original idea.

Visit www.africanpark.com to get free tips on how a Nigerian can succeed online with different methodology. Africanpark.com is a Nigerian business forum that tries to encourage and give tips on how a Nigerian can succeed online with little or no effort.

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Are you talking about an African Paypal of the sort? If so, even though it's a great idea there are a few obstacles depending on the country. In Cameroon, probably like 1%(or less) of the population have a credit or debit card. Everyone deals with cash, so how will they be able to transfer their cash money to an online account for payments? Even those with bank accounts, the banks have no online banking system. So there won't be an easy way to transfer you money to an online account. The company that tries to make the online payment would have to either build a network for the online payments of the customers and a system, to allow bank tellers to manually transfer customers money to their online account. That becomes expensive and not user friendly. You could also launch atms all over Africa to allow people to deposit cash money straight to their bank account. Very expensive. In a country like Cameroon the best options would be to allow people to buy a card (like a cellphone card) for a certain amount that you can use the pin at home to credit your account with the money.

But then it depends on the country. I assume Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya probably have a better credit and debit card population and probably better online banking structures.

I am a web programmer for cellenesswebsites.com. If you are talking about a shopping cart system like magento or ubercart, or an online payment system similar to paypal or quickteller, I can tell you that most clients are not ready for that. The african environment is not even very aware of the use of internet for buisiness promotion so building an online payment system for people who are not ready for it, would prove very difficult for a programmer to sell.